Through a Window I see a Cave

2019 - 2024

Oil pastel and mirror sticker on paper - 27x37cm

For the past 10 years, I have been reading and explicating Susan Sontag's interpretation of Plato's theory of the cave and the relationship to feminism, gender and cinema.

Cinema in general, or gendered cinema is the critical conduit to multiple bodies of work I have created; from large scale synthetic polymer paintings to wax pastel drawings, cardboard and wax sculptures to sound works.

 The cave has been a critical component to this investigation - the basis to illuminate the signs, signifiers and semiotics of speleology, with a special interest in the analogy of the wet, darkened cave (enter Plato and Sontag) to the pitch tenebrous of a cinema theatre.

By finding a connection between Sontag, Plato and Barthes and creating elements to understand their theories and writings, I have attempted to present these in visual forms. Many of these forms can be found in the Victorian landscape, which is littered with caving systems that I have explored for these bodies of work, including a recent pilgrimage to the underland ossuaries of the Parisian catacombs and an upcoming sojourn to the Yarrangobilly caves of Koscuiszko National Park.

The images above are reflected from popular culture, vintage postcards of caves and caving systems and the mythology of light and dark/ black and white, and our perception of what we view through this lens.